A 5 year $5.4m grant has been awarded to Profectus BioSciences and the Galveston National Laboratory (GNL) at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to support the development of a Vesicular Stomatitis virus-vectored vaccine for Ebola and Marburg Viruses.
The grant, awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will help develop the trivalent vaccine to protect against infection with all major strains of Ebola and Marburg viruses, the two members of the filovirus family of hemorrhagic fever viruses.
Based on a replication-competent recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV), Profectus has developed an immunogenic vaccine delivery system.
A single injection of the rVSV-Ebola vaccine is able to protect guinea pigs and non-human primates against lethal challenge with the highly pathogenic Zaire species of Ebola virus, according to a collaborative study GNL and NIH.
Profectus chief scientific officer John Eldridge said the NIH and the scientific community have recognized the potential of an rVSV-vectored filovirus vaccine to provide protection against these bio-threat agents.
"In addition to providing single-dose protection, this platform provides the high manufacturing yields that allow rapid and economic production," Eldridge said.
The funding will support development of a blended vaccine composed of three rVSV vectors that will protect against the major filovirus species.
As part of the development Profectus will design and develop the lyophilized trivalent vaccine, while the GNL will conduct the studies at biosafety level 4 (BSL4) to demonstrate protection against the Ebola and Marburg viruses.
GNL investigator and UTMB professor Tom Geisbert said proving the potential of this vaccine would be an amazing step forward in combating these deadly filoviruses.
"The unique resources of the GNL's BSL4 lab provide the confines to test the Profectus candidate vaccine safely and effectively and we look forward to carrying out the task that NIH has set for us," Geisbert said.
